Change the Eye Level, Ian
Love the kid, like the potential ... hate watching him pitch right now. :: big smile Ian ::
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=== Inning 1 ===
Jumped out to an 0-2 count on one of the lefties, David DeJesus, who has been the bane of his existence. On the 0-2 count, Rob Johnson put down the signal for fastball and flashed the upper pocket of his mitt up above DeJesus' hands.
Dr. D's eyes got wide. Hey, Robby knows what to read, don't he! Kidding kidding.
Johnson dropped the mitt, settled into his crouch and then .... opened the mitt up to set a bright target, stomach-high. Calling for the ladder pitch!
Snell reached back, fired a 93 bullet and nearly tore Johnson's mitt off right where it sat. DeJesus flailed like John Kruk at a Randy Johnson slider -- and then raised his bat as if to smash it on the ground.
Snell changed the eye level, SURPRISED DeJesus guarding the lower zone, got a garbage strikeout, and immediately scored 50% of his strikeout total from the previous game.
...................
Willie Bloomquist fouled off a first-strike fastball and then Johnson set his mitt high again.
I couldn't believe my eyes.
Snell fired in a 92-mph ladder pitch and Bloomquist swung five inches under the ball. 0-2.
On 0-2, Snell went down in the zone again, and Bloomquist cracked a long fly ball to Bill Hall.
......................
I did not notice Ian Snell throw another high fastball* until his last batter, DeJesus in the fifth. It was another swinging strike.
*he occasionally aimed for a target 4 inches outside, and relatively high, an "on the black" pitch which is nothing whatsoever like what we are talking about here.
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=== Innings 2-5 ===
Snell went back to his usual pitch-to-contact baloney for the rest of the game. He threw 53 fastballs vs. a mere 16 offspeed pitches, and every one of them (until the last batter) was either (A) "try to nip the kneecaps" or "try to nick the outside edge."
The result:
Inning two -- Franklin Gutierrez caught two (2) 400-foot fly balls while standing on the warning track in straightaway center field.
Inning three -- Bloomie hit a screaming rope to Bill Hall in RF, and another guy hit a ball that Guti ran down deep in right center. That doesn't count the single, the walk, and the home run that were also hit.
Shall we go on, or do can yer take it from here?
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=== It Ain't a Very Big Strike Zone ===
To appreciate the problemo, you've got to visualize just how small an area that is, through which the ball is passing. It is only because the ball is passing through a little 18x24" box, that anybody can hit Felix Hernandez to start with.
But when you announce that you will only be using the bottom of the strike zone ... you really are making the hitter defend an area about the size of a clipboard.
So we've got a 91 fastball, passing through an 18x12" area, and once in a while there's an 81 change coming through the same area.
And we wonder why the Kansas City Royals were hitting 3-irons all over Safeco Field?!
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=== Sabermetrically ===
Ian Snell has 67 strikeouts and 63 walks on the season. He will not stay in the big leagues with that ratio, period. End of story.
And his ratio is 15 strikeouts, 19 walks since joining the Mariners. He'll be in AAA involuntarily the next time.
It's not because he's not throwing well. He's throwing fine. It's that he has no earthly clue how to achieve a third strike.
The "nip the kneecaps" crud has got to go. He has GOT to change the eye level with the FB and he's got to get swinging strikes at offspeed that is outside the strike zone. He's got to strike some guys out, period.
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=== The Good News ===
Snell is well capable of 6+ strikeouts a game. He's got a fastball and he sells the offspeed stuff well.
His command is actually very good. Brooksbaseball.net had him for 5.5 nibbleness -- meaning his FB *averaged* a scant 5" from some edge of the strike zone or other -- and yet he threw 75% strikes with the FB. So the command is a real positive.
That's great, that Ian can hit the knees with a FB at will. That's great 0-0 and it's great 3-0. It's just not great, twelve pitches in a row.
We haven't seen the good slider yet, in part because Adair has him working on changeups to the LH hitters that have been killing him. Snell needs to groove in a very simple game:
RH: FB up-and-down, Slider
LH: FB up-and-down, Change
And he's right there.
Or not,
Dr D